Bryant program connecting business students to jobs

HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE: Bryant University students Alicia Kennedy, left, and Makena Sage with Gerald Cohen, standing, Chafee Center for International Business trade specialist, Madan Annavarjula, second from right, Bryant international business program director and David Marquis, president of ChemArt. / COURTESY BRYANT
HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE: Bryant University students Alicia Kennedy, left, and Makena Sage with Gerald Cohen, standing, Chafee Center for International Business trade specialist, Madan Annavarjula, second from right, Bryant international business program director and David Marquis, president of ChemArt. / COURTESY BRYANT

With just a few weeks to go until graduation, Bryant University senior Alicia Kennedy spoke with great relief about having wrapped up what many of her classmates – as well as other graduates across the nation – may be heavily fretting over.
She had accepted a job offer.
What led to her achievement? Kennedy said it was the school’s international business program – more specifically its senior-year practicum.
“To a future employer it looks fantastic. [They know] you can come in prepared on that first day,” said Kennedy. “The program itself is a differentiator but the capstone [the practicum] is the ability to have real-world work experience. That’s not something every university has.”
Bryant University’s international business program, launched in the mid-2000s, has since 2009 run the practicum as a capstone project that matches students in groups of three based on their background, strengths and the needs of participating companies.
Students work as consultants to help businesses with aspects of their international strategies.
Madan Annavarjula designed the course when he took over the program in spring 2007, after examining its curriculum and identifying a gap in the practical experience employers would be looking for in new hires.
“We found that one of the biggest challenges our students [would] face is to convince the employer that they can do the job,” he said.
In 2009, six companies hosted 18 students. This semester, 20 businesses signed on to work with Annavarjula’s 60 seniors.
Annavarjula said that of the group of 50 companies that he’s worked with over the last few years, all are launching or in the last stages of launching an international expansion.
“[The practicum] has tremendously helped the program image,” he said. “I [think] it’s a win-win situation because the students get valuable experience … and the employers get to see what they would bring to the table.”
Kennedy was one-third of a student group assigned to help ChemArt, a Lincoln-based manufacturer of custom metal keepsakes, including the White House Christmas ornament, in the last stage of its plans to launch in Mexico and Canada.
The company has taken practicum students since the program’s inception.
Saying he was daunted by the task of developing an international strategy, David Marquis, president of ChemArt and a Bryant alumnus, has had students do market research and this semester had Kennedy’s group focus on social media. “I wouldn’t have been able to put the time and effort into it,” said Marquis. “What [the program] has done is demystified something. They did the leg-work. I’m a firm believer in trying to have academia work with business.”
With a goal of launching internationally sometime next year, ChemArt hasn’t yet hired any Bryant students, though other participating companies have and Annavarjula is proud of the number of students who secured full-time positions following graduation. (Marquis said once he expands ChemArt he may be able to take on additional employees.)
The program’s class of 2011 graduated 51 students. Other than the handful who went on to graduate school, every one of them is employed and, according to Annavarjula, most of them have internationally focused positions.
“I’m resisting my temptation to be bragging,” he said. “Employers are looking at them and saying, you know, ‘These guys can hit the ground running.’ ”
Among last year’s hires was Elena Barkalova, who now is executive-operations coordinator at Alex and Ani, the Cranston-based, costume-designed jewelry manufacturer.
As a student she worked for Natco Products Corp. in West Warwick on its plans to create a home-furnishing and textile-manufacturing subsidiary in Spain.
During the program’s annual presentation, which Barkalova’s team won before a panel of business judges, she was noticed by Alex and Ani CEO Giovanni Feroce, a judge, and eventually offered a job.
Annavarjula said approximately six Class of 2011 students were offered positions by as many companies participating in the program. Barkalova was the only one to accept.
She’s now working with Bryant students, who are developing industry reports for Singapore. A second team is at Alex and Ani conducting similar research for the United Arab Emirates.
Among the Singapore team students, one, Andrew McLeod, has accepted a job offer for Providence-based Textron Corp., though he’ll be based in Kansas for its leadership-development program.
His teammates, Michelle Chambers and Stacy Buiwell, are still job searching and interviewing.
“I’ve been looking at consulting companies and [the program] has come up [during interviews],” said Chambers. “You don’t get this kind of experience in a [regular] undergraduate environment.” •

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